1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to crate packaging systems, and more particularly, to an adjustable suspended roll packaging systems for storing and shipping large rolls of wound sheet material, such as fabric or plastic, which are carried on elongated cores.
2) Description of Related Art
In various manufacture industries, sheet material such as fabric is often shipped in elongated cylindrical rolls utilizing a supporting elongated core. This is also true for the shipping of plastic film and other such materials that can be wound around an elongated core. Difficulty arises from the material handling viewpoint in that the sizes of the material being shipped can vary in the length of the cores, as well as the width. The variations in the material sizes generally depend upon the particular requirements of the customer and thus require custom packaging solutions for a given roll.
The prior art largely teaches systems in which the elongated material rolls are shipped on pallets having fixed dimensions. The rolls are positioned in end plates having a central opening for receiving the elongated cores. The end plates are secured to the pallets at pre-defined locations, and are not adjustable or repositionable. Accordingly, since the material rolls often vary in length, different sizes of pallets are used to ship the material rolls and a large quantity of different size pallets must be kept in inventory.
The use of pallets having various sizes is inconvenient and expensive. To accommodate for the various sizes of rolls which may be required to be shipped, every warehouse may have over 50 different types of pallets on hand having various widths and lengths with numerous quantities of each type of pallet. Accordingly, there is an excessive amount of money and storage space tied up in pallets which are on hand solely for a particular size shipping job which may or may not be demanded by a customer.
Some efforts have been made in the prior art to provide adjustability to the material roll packaging systems to reduce this problem. However, these systems lack durability and/or ease of use in the connections used to secure the end plates. As such, the systems are cumbersome and require multiple people working in concert to adjust the components. Further, impacts sustained during the normal shipping process can lead to a failure of the packaging system and damage to the material roll.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an adjustable packaging system for suspending material rolls which is easily adjustable by a single person to accommodate different roll lengths, as well as having sufficiently durable construction and arrangement able to survive normal impacts sustained during shipping.